I'm going to be engaging in credit-card arbitrage once more.
Chase has offered me zero-percent balance tranfer checks again, with a one-time usage fee of $50. It worked just fine last year, so I figure I should take the money where I can get it. I've passed up a couple of similar offers in the last few months, mostly because I didn't like something in the fine print. Policies at Chase haven't changed since last year — at least not as far as I can tell from digging up the previous offer's paperwork in my files.
I wrote a more detailed piece here, detailing some of the perils of such an undertaking, if anyone cares.
Should have the $8400+ tucked away in my ING account and earning interest by late this week.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Credit Card Arbitrage
— Posted by Michael @ 5:03 PM
1 Comments:
Having been trained in the credit card shuffle madness in my twenties, I have also recently engaged in credit card arbitrage. To the tune of more than $20,000. And yes, Chase seems to be the way to get the credit into cash. They don't give very long 0% offers, but many others will gladly xfer the amount (no xfer fee) to a long 0% offer where you can then live like a fat cat. Obviously, read the fine print and never miss a payment or it'll all be for naught.
My question to readers is this: Why in the world do credit card companies do this? Do that many people really take the money and spend it and go deep into debt to offset people like myself who just put it away in a savings account. BTW: There are online savings accounts with up to 3.75 APR now.
** Comments Closed on this Post **